overed, from his
house and place him in a public sanatorium, provided by the state, for
the sake of removing him from the conditions which have produced his
disease, of placing him under those conditions which alone can offer a
hopeful prospect of cure, and of preventing the further infection of his
surroundings. The only valid objections to such a plan are those of the
expense, which, of course, would be very great. It would be not merely
best, but kindest, for the consumptive himself, for his immediate
family, and for the community. And enormous as the expense would be,
when we have become properly aroused and awake to the huge and almost
incredible burden which this disease, with its one hundred and fifty
thousand deaths a year, is now imposing upon the United States,--five
times as great as that of war or standing army in the most military-mad
state in Christendom,--the community will ultimately assume this
expense. So long, however, as our motto inclines to remain, "Millions
for cure, but not one cent for prevention," we shall dodge this issue.

There can be no question but that each state and each municipality of
more than ten thousand inhabitants ought to provide an open-air camp or
colony of sufficient capacity to receive all those who are willing to
take the cure but unable to meet the expense of a private institution;
and, also, some institution of adequate size, to which could be sent, by
process of law, all those consumptives who, either through perversity,
or the weakness and wretchedness due to their disease, or the apathy of
approaching dissolution, fail or are unable to take proper precautions.

When we remember that the careful investigations of the various
dispensaries for the treatment of tuberculosis in our larger cities, New
York, Boston, Cleveland, report that on an average twenty to thirty per
cent of all children living in the same room or apartment with a
consumptive member of their family are found to show some form of
tuberculosis, it will be seen how well worth while, from every point of
view, this provision for the removal and sanatorium treatment of the
poorer class of these unfortunates would be. These dispensaries now
have, as a most important part of their campaign against the disease,
one or more visiting nurses, who, whenever a patient with tuberculosis
is brought into the dispensary, visit him in his home, show him how to
ventilate and light his rooms as well as may be, give practical